The present invention relates to a moving object shooting system, and is to be applicable to a shooting system for shooting a moving object, for example, such as a roller coaster or the like.
Recently, a system of shooting the appearance or the expression of the face of passengers who is getting on, in the middle of getting on a roller coaster, a water coaster or the like in an amusement park and selling a photograph by printing it to a person who wants it after the passengers got off, is developed and operated. In this system, for example, on a roller coaster equipment shown in FIG. 1, let trains 3a and 3b composed of plural coupled vehicles 2a to 2f run of which the wheels are held by rails 1.
The passengers pass in front of a control house 4 (there is an operator who sells a ticket or the picture and operates a shooting system control unit 5 exists), go up a stairs 6 and going to a plat home 7, and get on the roller coaster train 3a or 3b. Two trains 3a and 3b are composed of six vehicles in this example, and four seats are provided in each vehicle.
A shooting means 8 is disposed at a position suitable for shooting along the running path of the trains so that the focus is on the passengers of the vehicles. The shooting means 8 may be a still camera or a video camera, and here, it is described by taking a video camera for example. A vehicle detecting sensor 9a composed of an infrared sensor, etc., is disposed on the right of the video camera 8, that is, the coming direction side of the trains to detect the head of a first vehicle 2a. Furthermore, a repeating strobe 10 (here, it is defined as 6 flashes) is disposed near the video camera 8.
If the train closes to the shooting position, the head of the train interrupts the infrared rays of the vehicle detecting sensor 9a, so that the coming of the train is detected. The first flash of the repeating strobe 10 arises at a timing of that the first vehicle 2a entered the angle of the video camera 8, a shutter disposed immediately before the video camera 8 opens and taking an image in, and then the second flash of the strobe 10 arises at a timing of that the second vehicle 2b entered the camera angle and shooting is performed similarly. Hereinafter, also the shooting of the third to the sixth vehicles 2c to 2f is performed similarly. Then, the images taken in by this shooting are sent to the system control unit 5 placed in the control house 4 and stored in a picture memory.
Note that, the video camera 8, vehicle detecting sensor 9a, repeating strobe 10 are connected to the system control unit 5 by cables 11a, 11b and 11c respectively, and transmit each output signal to the system control unit 5 as well as receiving a control signal from the system control unit 5. Then, the pictures of the passengers shot for each vehicle are displayed on a display monitor 12 in which six monitor TVs are arranged, and the picture is printed and provided as the passenger requests it.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the structures of a shooting section and a printing section. The system control unit 5 is provided with an interface section 13, a controller 14 such as a CPU or the like, an RGB frame memory 15a for storing the pictures, a hard disk 15b, a camera control section 16 and a display timing controller 17 or the like.
The video camera 8, vehicle detecting sensor 9a, repeating strobe 10 are connected to the interface section 13 by the cables 11a to 11c respectively, and the interface section 13 and the controller 14 are connected to each other by a signal bus. Thus, the controller 14 controls the video camera 8, vehicle detecting sensor 9a and repeating strobe 10 via these interface section 13 and cables 11a to 11c respectively.
The RGB frame memory 15a is connected to the controller 14 to store the pictures taken in from the video camera 8. The hard disk 15b is connected to the RGB frame memory 15a to ensure sufficient memory capacity for storing many pictures.
The display monitor 12 is connected to the display timing controller 17, and the pictures of each vehicle read from the hard disk 15b are displayed on six monitor TVs 12a to 12f respectively.
Furthermore, three printers 19 are connected to the interface section 13 via a signal distributor 18. Also, for example, a touch screen 20 is connected to the interface section 13 to specify one of the pictures and instruct its printing-out.
Then, as the passenger passes by in front of the display monitor 12 and finds the picture in which himself/herself comes out, he/her tells the operator the number of monitor TV displaying that picture. If the operator inputs the number of the picture of which order is received on the touch screen 20, a print of the specified picture is printed out from the printer 19.
By the way, in the shooting system having the above structure, a timing of cutting the shutter of the video camera 8 is computed and set from the running speed and the space of seats of the coaster on the basis of a signal obtained from the vehicle detecting sensor 9a for detecting the arrival of the train 3a or 3b. 
However, a running speed of each train changes by the effects of difference in the maintenance state of coaster, whether, temperature and humidity, so that the focus is to be out of the passengers and a part no passenger exists is shot, and a valueless picture is apt to be generated unfortunately.
As a reference, this relationship between the deviation of the center of camera angle (shot) and the speed of the train is shown in FIGS. 6A to 6F. The length of the vehicle is defined as 5 m, and a predetermined shooting position is defined as the center of the vehicle. FIG. 6B is a state where a shutter opening timing is set so that the center of camera angle comes at the center of the first vehicle 2a in the case of a speed of 70 km/h, and this is defined as the predetermined shooting state. FIG. 6A shows a state where the camera angle deviates rightward from the center of the vehicle when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case in the case of a speed of 75 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.6 m).
FIG. 6C shows a state where the camera angle deviates leftward from the center of the vehicle at 65 kilometer an hour and when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case (the amount of deviation is 1.6 m).
FIG. 6E is a state where the shutter opening timing is set so that the center of camera angle comes at the center of the second vehicle 2b in the case of a speed of 70 km/h, and this is defined as the predetermined shooting state. FIG. 6D shows a state where the camera angle deviates rightward from the center of the second vehicle 2b when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case at 75 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.97 m).
FIG. 6F shows a state where the camera angle deviates leftward from the center of the second vehicle 2b when the shutter opening timing is the same condition as the aforementioned case at a speed of 65 km/h (the amount of deviation is 1.97 m). And, pictures with deviated camera angle which are shot in these states (a), (c), (d) and (f) become totally valueless things unfortunately.
Considering the above points, in such shooting system of a moving object such as a roller coaster or the like, the present invention provides a shooting apparatus without a deviation at the center of camera angle (shooting) even if a speed of each part of the moving object changes.
To solve the above problems, in the present invention, a shooting means disposed at the optimal shooting position of a moving object along a running path of the moving object, a moving object detecting sensor disposed at the coming side of the moving object than the shooting device, a speed sensor for measuring the running speed of the moving object, and a timing control means for deciding a shooting timing of the shooting means based on the outputs of the detecting sensor and the speed sensor, are provided.
In this manner, by providing the moving object detecting sensor and the speed sensor for measuring the running speed of the moving object and deciding the shooting timing based on the outputs of these detecting sensor and speed sensor, even if the speed of the moving object changes, since the shooting timing is decided considering the speed of the moving object, a deviation of the center of camera angle from a predetermined shooting position can be prevented.
Thus, according to the moving object shooting system of the present invention, even if the running speed of the moving object changes by its maintenance state and the change of environment, the shooting can be performed without the center of camera angle deviates from a predetermined shooting position, for example, by always holding boarding persons at the center of the picture.
Furthermore, even if the installation site of the video camera is a position at which the moving object accelerate or decelerate, since the shooting timing is adjusted corresponding to the change of the speed of the moving object changing from one minute to the next, an object (or person) can be always held at the center of camera angle.
Moreover, since a timing to flash the strobe and a flashing period, and a timing to open the shutter are all set reflecting the speed of the vehicle changing, the shutter is opened at the optimal position of each vehicle during the strobe flashes, person is always held at the center of the picture, and it can be clearly shot in high picture quality.